I wrote this guide from my blog (lazerchicken.com) primarily directed at those who are new to Moonkin, and especially directed at newer players (I tend to explain things that more experienced players might already know). If you have anything to contribute (macros, mistakes to fix, ideas for new sections, comp playstyle strats) please comment and I’m glad to add them to the guide. Thanks for reading!

Glyphs

Glyphs in MoP offer some really nice opportunity for making changes to suit your playstyle/comp, similar to how the talent trees are now setup. There is really only one mandatory glyph, no matter what comp you play, and the others will vary based on comp/opponent/playstyle quite a bit. Here is my list:

Moonbeast – Absolutely a must when it comes to glyphs (and probably the only one). Being able to heal in form saves the global of going back into form after healing and allows you to keep the 15% damage reduction and 5% party haste from form while you are healing. This could add up to some substantial extra globals over the course of a game.

Stampede – Being able to cast stampeding roar in moonkin form will give you and your party a nice dash and breaks their roots/snares. Again, saves a global when using it. Not a must, but a nice bonus.

Omens – This change has been brutal. Everyone knows that vortex/beam was very gimmicky, but without the glyph of Solar Beam the radius of the beam is so tiny. Omens is a decent choice if you get trained a lot, since you can spam Faerie Fire to get into eclipse, but it's so little energy that I find it underwhelming. Personally, I don't run this glyph anymore since the 5.3 change.

Prowl– If you are playing a triple stealth team (let’s say Rogue/Moonkin/Rsham) having the ability to move faster for the opener can be huge. This one is quite situational though, as it will really only be important for the opener.

Nature’s Grasp – Since they’ve changed the spell to have only one charge this expansion, it’s not as powerful as it once was, but still a really good talent. Being able to use it twice as often is pretty darn powerful vs. melee cleaves. A really good choice.

Barkskin – An old staple. Great defensive glyph, so if you are playing a comp where you are the one who gets trained a lot, I would call this glyph a must, personally.

Cyclone– 5 yards may seem like a small distance, but if you ask anyone who played Moonkin prior to MOP you will hear how much that 4 yards can make a difference in a game.

Entangling Roots – Another one that sounds miniscule, but can be a game changer. Being able to get off a second root on a healer who has been root-beamed, can mean the difference between an 8 second cc and a 12 second cc from one Solar Beam. If you’re talented into vortex, this glyph becomes far less effective (no root/beams), though can still help with managing melee.

Fae Silence – This one has some really cool implications, especially in comps where you are playing more of a utility role, rather than the primary damage dealer. Being able to pop into bear and follow a deep freeze or HoJ up with a 3 second silence when training a healer can be gamebreaking. The only disadvantage (besides losing a global going into bear form) is the 15 second cd that’s triggered on FF when used in bear form. But with dispels having a long cd now, this shouldn’t make it super difficult to keep FF on that annoying rogue or feral.

Most of the other glyphs can have some significance, but IMO are not nearly as gamebreaking as any of these when you’re playing a lazer chicken. I’ll probably start out with Moonbeast, Solar Beam, and Barkskin for the extra cc and survivability, but I expect I’ll be swapping around with Cyclone, Nature’s Grasp, and Stampede depending on the comps I’m running and what our survivability finally settles down like once the devs are no longer tweaking things.

For minor glyphs, it’s mostly fun stuff, but there are a couple key ones:

Grace - Being able to jump down to Mine in AB without switching to catform to prevent damage can be huge. Hop down, cast a rejuv on yourself in mid-air and get to the lazer duty!

Stag: - This allows you to be mounted (ummm…) while in travel form. While we don’t know how this will finally play out in Arena’s with being in combat vs. not, this could certainly have huge implications depending on how they let us do it. Keep watching and I’ll update as we know more.

Talents

Tier 1 - Mobility
With the nerf to displacer beast (no longer stealths you or drops target/focus), wild charge has become an excellent choice as well. Whether it's kiting in travel form, jumping backwards just after Typhoon for some big distance to the incoming melee, or going caster form and leaping to your planted mushrooms (even on another level, like the bridge in Blade's Edge), this talent brings a load of utility. It can also be a really great tool for eating traps (drop form, leap to healer, trap). I do still enjoy playing with the new displacer, and find that I change between that and wild charge quite often, depending on the opponent and our comp. I did play with having the 15% all the time increase and since it stacks with other increases, it can be a quite nice way to just stay very mobile, especially for beginners getting used to Druids.

Tier 2 - Healing
As much as I'd like to say there is a choice, this one is a no brainer. 1 minute Nature's Swiftness with a 50% increase on any heal it's used on is humungous. With 5.2 bringing back 25% of pvp power affecting heals coming from dps specs, we should see some really nice healing from Moonkin again. Quite a bump from our really mediocre cata healing. It's also great for that instant clone when someone pops all their cds on you and you can't cast. Cenarion Ward received a substantial healing buff and has its uses (especially vs. LSD 2.0 that just tries to wear your team down) but will be very situational. The other talent isn’t even an option, unfortunately.

Tier 2 - Anti-melee
This tier gives you a bunch of ways to keep that pesky rogue or warrior from smashing your face in. Despite the nerf to a 30 sec cd (was 20) Typhoon is still the best for z-axis maps, such as Blade's Edge or Dalaran (man that Ret is gonna be pissed!). Knocking back a rogue can give you the room to get that clone off on him without getting interrupted. It's also great for an interrupt in a pinch. Faerie Swarm has been buffed to an unlimited number of targets (huge change). Being able to keep a 50% slow on the opposing dps while your shaman goes ghost wolf can be pretty awesome. I would call it situational, now that we can tell who our opponents are before starting a match. Mass Entanglement is great against the hunter zoo, with the cd reduced to 30 seconds. You can use it from range, hit multiple targets, and the cooldown is solid to prevent DR issues. All three talents will have uses in different circumstances.

Tier 4 - DPS
This is the first tier that gives you a change to your DPS. Force of Nature is similar to our old trees, except they now cast wrath, hit a lot harder, instantly root your target on cast, and now have 3 separate charges on 20 second cds. This is a nice replacement for vortex beam, especially since trees are off the global, but giving up Incarnation damage is a pretty big sacrifice. The AI is still super wonky, keeping it mostly inferior to Incarnation. Soul of the Forest is a pick it and forget it talent. It helps you get to your eclipse faster but you don't have any control over it. A good pick for someone learning Moonkin, but the other two give you much more potential. Incarnation is pretty beast. 25% increased eclipse damage for thirty seconds is a lot of damage for a long time. Line this up with an on use trinket, Nature's Vigil (from Tier 6), and your partners cd's and you could be doing a disgusting amount of burst. Not to mention the sweet armor it puts on your character during the cd.

Tier 5 - CC
This is a really fun tier. Bash is the same as our old ability except you can use it in ANY FORM! Pretty great if you don't play with a stun class. Disorienting Roar is basically a slightly longer cd Dragon's Breath that doesn't have a directional requirement. If you are getting trained a lot, this can be a great peel, as well as a way to setup clone/roots chains. Keep in mind that unlike Dragon's Breath, this does break on dot damage. Ursol's Vortex is probably the most fun, especially combined with Solar Beam, and is easily the most potent cc in the game (since you can't trinket vortex or beam). Note* - the nerf to Glyph of Solar Beam made this combo much less potent, but it still has it's uses. I find using vortex just for peeling melee is still great, and if you play an uninformed healer, they will still panic in beam, sprint out, and get sucked back in by vortex.

Tier 6 - Hybrid
This is where we remember that we aren't just a pure lazer turret class. Nature's Vigil gives you the ability to do some healing while putting out more pressure. This could be a great cd to turn the tides when you're team is getting behind. All of a sudden the other team is taking monster damage and your team is getting healed back up. Ideally, you'll be stacking Vigil with your Incarnation/Trees/on-use for extra damage. Dream of Cenarius is going to have the least use, as it is pretty passive throughout. Unless you're facing LSD 2.0 and need to keep up rejuvs on your team non-stop, the other two talents will outshine this one. Heart of the Wild is insanely good for helping your team survive during the other team's burst. The healing is stupidly powerful, and when used right, it can be gamebreaking. Against DoT teams, just having HoTW rejuvs ticking on your entire team over the duration of demon soul/incarnation/etc. can really shut down the pressure of your opponent. The passive int is nice, too, if you want another click and forget talent.

Really good point made by HackAttack3 about the viability of Moonkin in 2's (finally!), mostly due to HoTW. Playing comps such as Lazer + Rogue/Ele/Dk/etc. can be a lot more fun, since you can reset the match with a few well timed heals. Playing with a healer is still pretty painful, but at least 2 dps is a pretty good time and makes for relatively easy point capping.

Class pairings

Mage: This is a really great class to pair up with, no matter which spec they are. Fire Mage/Moonkin creates a very powerful dot comp referred to as "Spicy Chicken Cleave". Frost Mage/Moonkin is probably one of the best comps you can play right now, as a Moonkin.

CC Diminishing Returns: Roots and Novas, Deep and Bash, Dragon's Breath (fire) and Disorienting Roar(talent), Polymorph and Ring of Frost (talent). Otherwise, you have a ton of CC that doesn't share DR, which is awesome. It may seem like a lot of DR share, but there is so much cc in this comp to begin with that it isn't a concern.

Symbiosis: Decent target, but you'll most likely give it to your healer in this situation.

Rogue: Excellent pairing, and gives you another nifty name for your comp in "Dancing With the Stars". Rogues and Druids combine for the best CC in the game, with very little DR so you can control the living hell out of the other team. Comp revolves around the moonkin spreading damage, similar to RLS, and the rogue bursting the kill target, while controlling others. Garrote -> Kidney -> Solarbeam on a healer that gets switched to when already at 75% will always get a kill or force major cds if done well.

CC Diminishing Returns: Bash and Rogue stuns, Roots and Paralytic Poison (talent, when shiv'd). So basically if you don't spec Bash, the DR issues are almost non existant and you have a ton of cc.

Symbiosis: Great choice. You both earn a huge defensive cd, making your team an even harder kill.

Priest: This is a great pairing as either Shadow or Disc. Between being able to give your healer Cyclone and gain a second dispel is gamebreaking. Shadow matches up nicely too, since you both have the ability to do a ton of damage when not trained, making any melee cleave think twice about who to train and who gets to freecast into them.

Symbiosis: The best swap. Disc gets clone and you get Mass Dispel. Shadow only gets a weak version of Tranquility, but you still get Mass Dispel which is huge.

Warrior: I like the idea of pairing with a warrior, for a few reasons. Beyond the fact that their symbiosis pairing is solid and you can get them out of roots as well every two minutes (trinket for your warrior!), the warrior single target burst allows you to play the utility role that they lack and just let the warrior eat things up.

CC Diminishing Returns: Stormbolt (talent) and Bash and Shockwave (talent), possible Spell Reflected CC, Staggering Shout (talent) and Roots. Even with the DR's here, I still think it's a solid amount of CC all around.

Symbiosis: You give the warrior a root break and he gives you intervene, allowing the two of you to ping pong around the map. Sounds like super interesting gameplay to me.

Death Knight: Historically, this has been a rather poor pairing with a Moonkin. When you're getting trained, the DK doesn't have a ton of ways to get someone else off you (unlike a warrior, who peels with his burst). That being said, it is completely different in MoP! Totally different play style than the typical Moonkin comp, in that you run in TSG style and pop everything in a beam. Having double grip into the beam, followed by strangulate is brutal on a healer. Really fun and exciting.

CC Diminishing Returns: Chains of Ice root (chiblains talent) and Roots, pet Gnaw and Bash. Not a ton of CC from the DK, but he does bring grip and necrotic which are such unique (and kinda OP sometimes) abilities.

Symbiosis: Getting AMS is nice, and the mushrooms are fairly good for Unholy. You would probably use it on your healer in this case.

Paladin: The style of Moonkin/Ret is pretty interesting. Being able to pop all cds and burst a healer during hoj ->solarbeam is pretty fantastic. Holy could be a viable partner for many comps with their great anti melee cds (freedom, bop, sac) and the spammable cc they were given (repentance talent).

CC Diminishing Returns: HoJ and Bash. Paladins don't have a ton of cc, but what they have is pretty good stuff.

Symbiosis: Ret is decent, since you gain an additional HoJ, but they get Wrath from you, which is something that will almost never get used. Holy gets Rebirth, which isn't usable in arena, so it's pretty much a waste.

Warlock: Affl Lock and Moonkin have excellent synergy, and came to be a dominant pair in Cataclysm by teaming up with a resto Shaman and forming LSD 2.0. By dotting everything in sight and having excellent CC, this is a thriving pairing. Destro and moonkin is also a nice pair, since either one of you left to free cast can be devastating to the opponent. Demo can also be a good pairing, now that they can't be spam dispelled anymore.

CC Diminishing Returns: Shadowfury and Bash and pet Axe Toss. Nothing worth worrying about, so overall the team has a ton of cc choices.

Symbiosis: An excellent pairing. Lock gains rejuv, meaning you can have hots rolling from both dps on your team and you gain a really solid defensive cd that keeps you from being silenced/interrupted for 8 seconds.

Hunter: Hunter was never a good choice because of dots ruining the ability to scatter trap, but with the new hunter glyphs that removes dots on scatter or trap, that is a thing of the past. This comp has excellent CC and peels for each other and could be devastating when both are able to burst.

Symbiosis: Unfortunately, hunter is the worst pairing here, as you gain a useless talent from him. You'll be giving it to your healer in this pairing.

Shaman: This is probably my favorite pairing for a number of reasons. Shamans make up for a Moonkin’s weaknesses and visa versa. Symbiosis is excellent no matter what shaman spec and you get really nice CC again. Ele/Moonkin, or Ping Pong cleave, can be super annoying with all of the knockbacks, Resto has been a really strong healer lately, and Enhance has nice burst and utility to match the druid.

Symbiosis: Ele or Enh gain SOLARBEAM!! This is gamebreaking, now having 2 beams for your team every minute. Gaining purge in exchange is huge as well. Resto getting prowl can be big for the opener, as anyone who played with a resto druid knows.

Monk: Monks seem to pair nicely with a lot of things right now, IMHO, both as a healer and a melee. We have a nice Symbiosis pairing and the healy monk has disgusting amounts of throughput, while the melee monk can do a metric ton of damage while still having great control.

Symbiosis: You gain a 1 minute disarm (awesome!) and your healer will gain entangling roots or the melee will gain Bear Hug (a mediocre stun that does damage on a 1-min cd). Pairing with either can be great for you, and double bonus if the pairing is with a MW!

Symbiosis

How to Moonkin or Which Laser Should I Press??

Moonkin is one of the coolest specs in the game. With the ability to nuke an opponent, heal your teammates, or just apply aoe pressure, the class with the best crowd control in the game offers us the chance to bring a lot of utility, while still bringing the damage. Let's start with the basics:

BASIC SPELLS:

As a new moonkin, you'll want to know what some of the basics to the spec are. Here are some of the most important spells and abilities:

Starsurge: This is our bread and butter nuke spell. Hardcasting this anytime it's off cool down is pretty much always a good idea and we have a chance at getting instant, no mana cost procs from dot damage to cast it again. Lining up a nice SS hard cast into a SS proc can be some really nice burst.

Moonkin Form: Shifting into form reduces your damage taken by 15%, increase your damage by 10%, and give 5% haste to you and everyone around you - pretty awesome. Try and stay in moonkin as much as possible, especially with the new glyph that allows you to heal in form. Leaving form to heal is only a good idea if you're going to die otherwise or you can line of sight incoming damage (losing the 15% damage reduction is huge)

Eclipse: This is the most important mechanic for being a lazer chicken and ensuring max damage. When you first enter arena, your eclipse bar is in "neutral", or right in the center. If you cast a wrath, it will move towards lunar first. If you cast a starfire it will move towards solar first. Generally speaking, wrath and starfire work opposite of each other. SS will always move you towards whichever direction you're currently going EXCEPT when you first start an arena in neutral - in this instance, if you cast it BEFORE you cast a wrath or starfire it will always move towards solar.

What if I can't cast you ask??? How will I ever see this amazing eclipse you speak of?? Never fear, I have alternatives for you. First off, our PvP 2 piece set bonus (bonus for having at least 4 of the 5 main set pieces) is setup so that when you get hit with a critical strike, you have a chance to gain 20 energy heading towards the direction you are currently going - it has an internal cool down, but you can get to eclipse pretty fast if you're being trained. We also have a great new ability called Astral Communion that allows you to gain energy towards you eclipse while channeling. But how can I channel while running around for my life you ask? Fear not, because our new 4 piece allows us to channel it while moving! You can also use Glyph of Omens if you need more ways of gaining energy, as this will allow you to spam Faerie Fire on your target for energy. Lots of great tools for getting that big damage.

So why does someone want to get into eclipse? Solar and lunar eclipse each add damage to some of your spells. Take a look below for specifics:

So anytime you hit an eclipse, you want to ensure that you have your dot ticking (Moonfire or Sunfire), cast SS on cd, pop Starfall if you're in Lunar, and ideally cast Starfires (lunar) into your target (assuming you aren't tanking two melee's with a lot of interrupts available. There is much more to the nuances, but we'll get to that shortly - this is just the basics of your "rotation". It’s important to note that Wrath does garbage damage, so it’s almost never worth casting and risking the lockout – there is almost always something more important you can do with utility.

Solarbeam: This spell is what makes us super annoying to the other team. By casting roots and immediately following it up with a Solarbeam on a healer, they are effectively stuck in the beam silenced for 8 seconds till the root ends. Having the ability to follow it up with a second roots is key - and if you are playing with a mage, being able to drop this on top of frozen targets is amazing for catching multiple casters at once. Sometimes, even without roots it's really great to drop on a healer behind boxes, forcing him to step into the open to heal and opening him up to giant CC chains. Being on just a one minute cd makes this a really sick spell. The ultimate pairing is with Vortex, and in RBG’s is actually the most OP cc combo in the game right now IMHO.

What makes this spell really special, is the ability to use it defensively that many people don't fully appreciate. A frost DK standing in it does almost no damage, a Ret can't CC you or do many of his damaging abilities and well placed beam around boxes (like Dalaran Arena) can allow you to really mess up burst from casters as well. Don't be afraid to drop it on a melee thats on you and stand in it if you need to relieve some pressure.

Owlkin Frenzy: This passive is really nice for when you're getting focused to allow you to do more damage. A straight 10% damage increase is nothing to laugh at, and the immunity to pushback is huge if the other team doesn't have an interrupt available - you can nuke away!

Lunar Shower: This talent really gives us the ability to keep doing damage while moving or getting trained and not go OOM. By spamming moonfire or sunfire on a target, you build up three stacks to do more damage and the spell costs very little. It's not the best damage you can do, but helps a lot when you are forced to kite or tank melee.

Wild Mushroom: Detonate: This allows you to blow up the mushrooms you place doing AOE damage. But what is more important is the 50% slow that is put on the ground for 20 secs. for 8 yards around each mushroom. Great for kiting, slowing an escaping enemy or peeling for your team.

Macros

1. Focus Macros:
GOOOOOOTTA have those focus macros. So important to be able to keep nuking your kill target while continually spamming clone/roots/hibernate etc. on your focus target. Typical macro for me looks like this:

You can change 'shift' to whatever mod you prefer (for me, shift is the most used by far) and there you go! You can now easily just hold shift and hit that same button without switching targets. Make macros like this for the following spells: Solarbeam, Entangling Roots, Faerie Fire (rogues!!), Cyclone, Bash (if specced), Wild Charge (if specced - great to go bear and charge interrupt someone/stun) and Hibernate

2. Rejuv
I like to setup macros to make it easy to keep rejuv on my teammates. This can done pretty easily in a similar fashion as above, but requires some maintenance if you want good control. I'll show too methods:

This will always cast rejuv on Billy when you have no mod, always on sammy when you hold shift, and on either your target if friendly or yourself if enemy targeted (and you have the option turned on in your settings to heal yourself when targeting an enemy). The positive side is you always know who you are healing. The negative is the upkeep if you switch partners a lot.

This version will always cast on party1 with no mod and party2 with shift held down. The downside of this method is that each time you enter arena party1 and party2 can be switched around. Far less upkeep though, totally up to you.

3. Form macros
Another important set of macros are power shift macros.

#showtooltip Moonkin Form
/cast !Moonkin Form(Shape shift)

Sub in any form there and you now have a macro that when you hit it takes you back into the same form without hitting caster form. This will help you break roots without leaving you vulnerable without your feathers/fur/etc. Make one for bear form, cat form, travel form, and even swim form if you like.

or

(from Snuggli)#showtooltip#show/cast [nostance]!MoonkinForm;[stance:1]!BearForm;[stance:4]!Travel form;[stance:3]!CatForm;[stance:5]!MoonkinForm;[stance:6]!MoonkinForm;
This gives you the one button power shift macro, where you can have a single button that power shifts, and other keys for each form. Either way can work, depending on your preference.

4. Trinket macros
This may sound silly, but how many times have you gotten an upgrade, forgot to put it on your bar, went to break out of cc/activate your burst trinket and nothing happened? You can avoid that by having a macro that always uses whatever's in that slot, rather than the specific trinket on your bars.

#showtooltip
/use 14

14 is your bottom slot and 13 is the top. Easy to make one for each.

5. Cooldowns

I'm a big fan of having a single button to press for that burst opportunity - it saves keystrokes which could be valuable when you only have a small window to burst.

In this macro, it casts berserking if you are a troll, uses your pvp burst trinket if it's in the top slot, casts lifeblood if you are an herbalist, and uses your engi glove if you're an engineer. Adjust to fit your race/profs. Since trinket triggers the internal cd on the engineering gloves, you can use this once for all of your big cds, and then hit it again later to just trigger the gloves.

6. Focus Set
This macro lets you mouseover a player and set them as focus. Great for bgs, rbgs, wpvp, or if you don't have gladius in arena

/focus [target=mouseover]

7. Wild Mushroom Leap

(from Snuggli)#showtooltip Wild Charge/target WildMushroom/stopmacro [noexists]/target=target/stopmacro [noexists, harm]/cancelform/cast WildCharge/targetlasttarget
This will allow you to leap up on a z-axis to a mushroom you've placed, if you are running Wild Charge as a talent. Very clutch when you're getting trained.

Those would be my core Moonkin macros. I'm glad to add more if people have good ones - feel free to email me/hit me on twitter! Until then, keep those lazers hot and spicy!

Comp Playstyles

Comp Playstyles #1 – LSD 2.0

This is the first, in what I hope to be a lengthy series of posts on Moonkin playstyle in different 3v3 comps. I thought we’d kick it off with one of the more straight forward (and super fun) comps that is available to us: LSD 2.0

Teammates: Resto Shaman, Affliction Warlock

Ideal Talents: Displacer, NS, varies, Incarn or SOTF, Vortex, Vigil

Symbiosis: Lock will be ideal (he gets rejuv, you get a defensive CD that makes you take less damage and become immune to interrupts for a short time. Shaman is also viable (he gets prowl, you get purge) but less important, since the lock can’t stealth so it won’t be a triple stealth opener.

Playstyle: This comp is your traditional dot cleave. The goal is fairly simple: dot EVERYTHING. I literally mean everything, including pets. The real strength of LSD 2.0 resides in getting everything low gradually, so that the healer just cannot keep up. It’s not uncommon to be playing this comp and to see the entire team die within 10-15 seconds of each other, rather than just killing one player while the others are close to topped off as can usually be the case. Popping Celestial Alignment and trinket early can start to really accelerate the pressure, especially if you toss a vortex/beam onto the healer just before popping it so that the dots can really tick away before they are able to start healing. Ideally your Lock will use Dark Soul at the same time, and you’ll find the pressure to be overwhelming. Incarnation and Nature’s Vigil can be stacked and used almost anytime you’re free to put out more pressure, since you’ll still just be dotting, surging, and casting starfall most of the time.

It’s pretty unnecessary to ever cast in this comp, outside of a rare cyclone or using Starsurge (if for some reason it comes off cooldown without proccing), so it’s pretty new player friendly with very little fear of a lockout. I recommend avoiding cloning unless necessary, as it slows your damage down – obviously you need to evaluate the situation and use it when appropriate (CC’ing a warrior with all his CDs popped should take priority over dotting him). Very little DR on CC here, as well, and almost none of it breaks on damage if you avoid taking Disorienting Roar.

Tips:

Avoid the “finish him he’s low!” mentality when playing LSD 2.0. It’s really easy to get caught up with a player that is sub 10% and wanting to finish him off. That’s really not the goal of this comp – if you just keep on dotting and switching, something will eventually die (the damage is literally unhealable). Spamming an instant into somebody to get a kill should be used sparingly, and you should rather turn to other targets to make sure they remain dotted during that time so that everything is still ticking down.

Shaman can actually do some decent DPS. When targets are getting low, if your healer can cast without fear of a lockout, and assuming your team isn’t super low, make sure they are tossing out a flame shock/lava burst combo every now and again. Lava burst always crits. They should also be using their fire elemental and storm last totem for that little bit of extra damage for the team.

Use your pillars. It’s pretty easy to step out, dot something, and step back in this comp. Don’t be afraid to kite around pillars, dot and hide, and really play defensively when necessary. Your dots will still be doing damage, even if you are LOS.

Happy hunting, feathered friends.

Com Playstyles #2 – Dancing With the Stars

This is probably my favorite Moonkin comp to play, and should be VERY powerful this season (s13).

Symbiosis: Both are excellent choices. Rogue gives you Cloak of Shadows if you’re playing against a caster cleave and he gets a damage reduction CD in Growl (his version is different than the Druid version). Priest will be the go to against melee cleaves, as he gets CYCLONE!! and you get Mass Dispel (on a 1 min cooldown). Both are very gamebreaking – if they train the rogue, you have MD to get your healer out of cc; if they train you, your healer can clone without fear of diminishing returns; if they train the healer, you can get the healer out of a clutch HoJ or Strangulate or get the Rogue out of cc so he can peel the healer.

Playstyle: This comp is fantastic because it can burst every minute, with the lineup of Solarbeam and Shadowdance (and Force of Nature if you spec it). In the offensive version of the comp (meaning you’re not playing against something that has very front loaded burst like TSG, triple DPS, or KFC) you’ll be picking up Nature’s Vigil and Ursol’s Vortex as well. Every one of these has a one minute cooldown, allowing you to swap onto any low target with stupid burst every single minute. The defensive version of the comp (for when you need to turtle out some huge front-loaded burst) will want to pick up HOTW for some major off-healing and Disorienting Roar or Vortex for another awesome peel cc during the enemy team’s cooldowns.

The opener for this comp will always come out of group stealth from the rogue. Ideally he’ll get a sap on one of the dps, while you open with a root>solarbeam (or Vortex>solarbeam if you’re specced for it) on the enemy healer. This gives you the opportunity for your first Shadowdance (and all 1 minute cds – Starfall, Force of Nature and Nature’s Vigil) on one DPS, while the enemy healer starts falling way behind. Coming out of the sap/solarbeam combo, if you can get a cyclone/blind off on the same too people who were already cc’d, you have a very good chance of scoring a kill.

If you don’t score a kill – DONT PANIC!! This comp is not at all about scoring an early kill. If the enemy is able to stop your kill attempt, then start spreading dots/starfall. This is a good opportunity to pop Celestial Alignment and dot everything (including pets). Your rogue can then swap to whatever target makes the most sense for him (based on positioning, relative health, stun DR) and work on setting up the kill for the next Shadowdance/Solarbeam combo. Make sure you are in Eclipse before your Rogue uses Shadowdance, and you should be scoring kills in no time!

Tips:

Supposedly Starfall doesn’t hit cc’d targets in 5.2 – until we see that this is true 100% of the time, the biggest thing to watch out for in this comp is Starfall breaking Sap and Blind. Make sure you are using it wisely (and communicating it well) and that your Rogue is watching for Starfall when he goes for a Blind or Sap (it’s something he’ll become used to as you play the comp more.

Healer kills are VERY viable for this comp. If you are good about dotting everything during the time between Shadowdance/Solar beam cds, there is a good chance the healer will be sitting at 60-70% when you swap to him. A well timed Garrote>Kidney>Solarbeam/Vortex>Paralytic Stun is horrific for a healer to deal with. If your Rogue isn’t peeled properly through this, the healer could be in for over 20 seconds straight of CC (which he will never survive)!!

Priest having cyclone can be amazing – but watch out for DR. If you are getting trained all game, this is a great time for your Symbiosis to be on the Priest so he can keep cloning while you are unable to. Just make sure you are communicating your clones, the same way a Lock/Spriest have to do with fears when playing Shadowplay.

Don’t forget your offheals. Even just tossing out occasional Rejuv’s (especially when you can’t cast because you’re being trained) can be huge for your healer.

I hope you have as much fun playing this comp as I do. When you get the hang of it, there is an incredible amount of everything – CC, burst, offhealing, utility, and mobility. Pew, pew!

Symbiosis: Your healer will be your ideal partner in this comp. The shaman will gain Prowl, allowing a triple stealth opener, while you gain purge (ensuring that everyone on the team can dispel enemy buffs). The priest will gain Cyclone (which is fantastic for ensuring targets are getting cc’d when you are getting trained and can’t cast) and you will gain Mass Dispel on a one-minute cooldown (which can literally be the difference between winning and losing a game when you can get your healer out of cc).

Playstyle: This comp is a hybrid between the previous two (Dancing With the Stars and LSD 2.0), in that you will be dotting everything for maximum spread damage again, but you have that nice burst window every time Deep Freeze is available for your mage. The opener against this team can be pretty nasty if the opposing team stacks up, as you have a large number of AoE cc’s available.

Typical opener for this comp will be to start dotting the entire team, while letting the mage control melee with novas and DB (DB doesn’t break on dot damage!). Since you will be avoiding speccing Disorienting Roar for this comp, the mage should be able to DB on cd without having to worry about diminishing returns. Use Celestial Alignment when you know you’ll have some free time to get dots on everything rolling (including pets) to increase pressure on the opposing team.

Kill attempts will revolve around your Mage. When going for a kill, let the mage deep the target (with the proper mage setup for procs), while you drop a vortex/beam on the healer (if attacking a dps). Fire Mages do nasty damage in a deep if setup right (sometimes 4 instant Pyroblast in a row!), so a properly timed vortex/beam, especially if you can typhoon them back inside, will easily amount to plenty of defensive cooldowns being popped by your enemy – or likely a kill!

Tips:

Play defensive – you’re entire team is pretty easy to kill for a decent melee cleave if you get overly aggressive for your kills. Don’t get baited into bad spots just to get a kill, knowing that your mage will have Deep available again in just a few seconds.

Any target is viable – going on a healer is pretty nasty if you can keep the dps from crushing you while you’re doing it (deep, blanket counterspell, vortex/beam/ring of frost), because of the insane amount of time you can keep the healer from casting while you blow them up. DPS are also good, though, as you can shut down a healer pretty well during your kill attempts with your massive amount of cc.

Utilize Mass Dispel – despite being on a one minute cooldown (and costing a load of mana), this can be game changing. When the KFC gets a trap off on your priest and are trying to go mongo on your mage, using MD to free your healer will ensure they have their trinket available later on.

Keep dots rolling – although this comp has awesome burst potential during Deep Freeze, a lot of what makes it so good is the wear and tear that Moonkin dots combined with Living Bomb and Combustion from the Mage can do to the opposing healer who is trying to keep up. Avoid overwriting stronger dots when you can, but just make sure everything is dotted constantly (including pets!).

Fight pressure with pressure – a lot of time there is the tendency to try and offheal through enemy burst, when really you should be countering them by popping your own cooldowns to push them back. Don’t be afraid to utilize massive cc and pure damage when the enemy goes mongo.

All in all, it’s a very fun comp to play. Fire does get trained pretty hard right now, with the massive number of melee cleave teams out there, but there is loads of potential.

I find myself using HotW more and more in 3s. It's actually such an amazing CD - I can off-heal heal through nearly any classes burst, and if they waste their interrupts / silences on me, then my healer is free to do whatever he wants.

Nature's Vigil isn't really that much of a big deal, Mage/Boomer/X's burst revolves around the Mage more than the Boomkin, 10% extra damage from me won't change if we score a kill or not - i'd much rather have an immortal team for 45 seconds.

Edit: Regarding this bit:

Quote

#showtooltip Moonkin Form/cast !Moonkin Form(Shape shift)

Sub in any form there and you now have a macro that when you hit it takes you back into the same form without hitting caster form. Make one for bear form, cat form, travel form, and even swim form if you like.

I think its better to have 1 powershift macro to handle all forms, and then have each form on a keybind (rather than having different keybinds for powershifting each different form). It's a lot less confusing, imo.

Also valuable for more experienced players who haven't tried all of these comps but are curious to give them a shot.

I agree with the druid a few posts above, HotW is pretty amazing right now with the additional pvp power to healing, especially if you renew Hots right before the buff expires.

I would recommend adding a few comments about 2vs2. Balance has historically been terrible in 2vs2 and most people have stayed away from it but with HotW I feel like we're the new ret pal off healers from cata. I have found balance/rogue, balance/spriest, and balance/ret to be extremely strong.

Hey guys, thanks for the comments. I am unable to comment directly into the thread, so thanks to Syke for pasting it in for me. Please continue the conversation!

Snuggli, on 08 April 2013 - 05:29 PM, said:

I find myself using HotW more and more in 3s. It's actually such an amazing CD - I can off-heal heal through nearly any classes burst, and if they waste their interrupts / silences on me, then my healer is free to do whatever he wants.

Nature's Vigil isn't really that much of a big deal, Mage/Boomer/X's burst revolves around the Mage more than the Boomkin, 10% extra damage from me won't change if we score a kill or not - i'd much rather have an immortal team for 45 seconds.

Edit: Regarding this bit:

I think its better to have 1 powershift macro to handle all forms, and then have each form on a keybind (rather than having different keybinds for powershifting each different form). It's a lot less confusing, imo.

- If you're in caster or flight form, it puts you in Moonkin form.
- If you're in any other form, it powershifts that form.

And then I have a macros to go to bear form, travel form and cat form and back to Moonkin if I press them again. Job done.

Reponse to Snuggli: I agree that a powershift macro is also a good alternative, and i'll add it as an option to the guide. I've run it both ways and I find that I default to hitting the button of the form I'm in when I want to powershift, probably just because I've played the class for a long time and had always had a macro for /cast !moonkin form, etc. The only comment I have about your play style - how do you go into caster form if all of your keybinds take you between two forms? Being able to Wild Charge a trap obv hinges on being in caster form (unless a melee happens to be standing on your healer). Curious, or maybe you only use Displacer?

Also, I decided to give HOTW a shot again (haven't used it since 5.1). Wow, were you right - with the additional healing we now get from PvP power, it was fantastic against burst teams like Thug Cleave, KFC, etc. I'll add that in as well, thanks!

Hackattack3, on 08 April 2013 - 09:00 PM, said:

Great guide! +rep

Also valuable for more experienced players who haven't tried all of these comps but are curious to give them a shot.

I agree with the druid a few posts above, HotW is pretty amazing right now with the additional pvp power to healing, especially if you renew Hots right before the buff expires.

I would recommend adding a few comments about 2vs2. Balance has historically been terrible in 2vs2 and most people have stayed away from it but with HotW I feel like we're the new ret pal off healers from cata. I have found balance/rogue, balance/spriest, and balance/ret to be extremely strong.

Response to HackAttack3: I think I may just be permanently scarred from years of awful 2s (my personal favorite is 5.0 when I could kill a dps and then the healer could LOS me for 20 mins if he so chose) so I haven't done many this season. I will tell you I have been absolutely DECIMATED by opposing Moonkin teams on my ele sham, so I can see the potential. I will try and do some games this week so that I can add that into the guide - thanks!

bk said:

I used to beat off alot, and fail all my classes

Insight said:

I figured he's a phony but I was secretly hoping to get pounded by someone famous.

Response to HackAttack3: I think I may just be permanently scarred from years of awful 2s (my personal favorite is 5.0 when I could kill a dps and then the healer could LOS me for 20 mins if he so chose) so I haven't done many this season. I will tell you I have been absolutely DECIMATED by opposing Moonkin teams on my ele sham, so I can see the potential. I will try and do some games this week so that I can add that into the guide - thanks!

Exactly lol,

This is the reason I will never step into a 2s again as boomer/healer. As double dps you will have a good time. I've really enjoyed boomer +rogue/mage/monk, there is a lot of control/peel/stuns to go around. Boomer +spriest and hunter was pretty frustrating since hunters are tough to keep up and spriest don't have a solid nuke/root or stun, too easy to LOS our pressure. My personal favorites:

1. boomer+monk
2. boomer+rogue
3. boomer+mage

I still need to try with a dk and lock although I feel dks will suffer from being squishy to melee (rogues/hunters) and lock will have same problem as spriests w/o the off heals.

The only comment I have about your play style - how do you go into caster form if all of your keybinds take you between two forms? Being able to Wild Charge a trap obv hinges on being in caster form (unless a melee happens to be standing on your healer). Curious, or maybe you only use Displacer?

Sorry for the really late reply. I nearly always run with displacer, but have all my charge macros bound and ready to go just incase we get something stupid on a Z axis map.

So to recap, I have 1 global powershift macro and each of the forms bound individually (although the same macro goes between moonkin+travel and back, moonkin+bear and back, etc). I also have each variant of wild charge bound so I can do whatever one I want, regardless of form.

It works for me, I honestly wouldn't feel comfortable powershifting each form on a separate keybind, it just seems weird. But I guess it works for a lot of people!